


The Gathering

by dangerkittyn



Category: VIXX
Genre: M/M, Multi, Original World, Science Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-07-22 12:16:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7438756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dangerkittyn/pseuds/dangerkittyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the year 1004, the world of Kynaseul is about to collapse. So Ravi, a young chronomancer, journeys back in time to avert a disasterous war by gathering five previously doomed heroes. Despite the clashing personalities and histories of each member, Ravi is determined to bring them together to succeed where history says they failed.</p><p>But Time has a way of sorting itself out and the very laws of nature are against them. Can six people truly stop two kingdoms from tearing each other apart? And what of the secret third kingdom, hidden from the eyes of the world? By changing what is, could they set the world on an even quicker course to doom?</p><p>There is only one future; there is only one hope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Cross posted to tumblr and aff. This is more an adventure story for the full group than a romance, but there will be WonTaekBin ship... eventually.

_The third day of Montseo, 1004_  
  
_My name is Ravi, and I’m the last of the chronomancers._  
  
_I write this from the Hope Spire in the College of History, inside the remnants of the last standing city of the 10th Holy Empire, Gaulmin, in case we don’t succeed. A record should be made to explain… to try and explain where we went._  
  
_The world of Kynaseul is on it’s last leg. It’s dying. We don’t have any more time, and I would know._  
  
_It’s my hope that my fellow chronomancers still have a chance, but I’ve waited as long as I could to see if change would come and none has arrived. So, it falls to me to take up my duty, even if I am destined to fail._  
  
_In the event that we lose, that we can’t accomplish our mission, then I want to at least leave a record of how we went extinct._  
  
_For years we have studied the history books, gone over every major upset that set this world down a darker path, trying to pinpoint the one moment in time where everything went wrong. In our conclusion, we only came to the idea that there were multiple points where this could have happened. Sprinkled throughout the long memory of our society are these pinpricks of darkness, where the world fell a little deeper into the mire._  
  
_And so it became our mission. We, the College of History, would attempt the impossible._  
  
_We aim to break the laws of Time and change the past._  
  
_It can be done. We must believe this. Even after the first of us left we could observe tiny ripples that dissipated without incident. One man died so his brother took his place in history. A country fell only to give birth to another that took a similar path. Fortunes changed in the blink of an eye. But Time would not be stopped and we arrived still at the same dreary end._  
  
_Each year we waited for more change, and more of us left to try their hand at challenging fate. It is my belief that we have not lost hope though. It’s only a matter of finding the correct lock and then the correct key._  
  
_Men, much smarter than I, have spent their entire lives theorizing the way to go about breaking the first cardinal rule of Time._  
  
_A chronomancer cannot ever change the course of the timestream. Time will always find a way._  
  
_But we had to try. We were dead either way._  
  
_And so, each chronomancer, turn by turn, left for a different moment in time to try and avert disaster. Hoping that they would be the key to the new future. And so it falls to me._  
  
_It is my turn to leave, and hope that this letter is never read, that I will succeed._  
  
_I am leaving for the year 381, the fall of the Third Holy Empire and the Betrayal of Arxis._  
  
_Legend tells of a band of heroes that rose up to stop the war, a band that ultimately failed in their task, but I mean to change this._  
  
_Unfortunately their names and many of the details have been lost to history after too many claimed to be part of the doomed party in the aftermath of the fighting. But certain details endure:_  
  
_A half breed angel, strong by necessity and bitterly torn between his two natures._  
  
_A vengeful necromancer, alone in the sea of people who hate him, his own hate festering inside._  
  
_A void knight of the Grand Court of the Starlit Kingdom, disgraced and seeking redemption._  
  
_An outlaw technomancer, a reputation larger than even himself, a challenger to all who approach._  
  
_And a turncoat officer from the Tacom Company, who led the hunt for the heroes before joining._  
  
_It will be my goal to gather and unite these heroes sooner than they are in legend, to prepare them better than they were, and ultimately to see them succeed where their predecessing selves failed. I will not directly put my hand into the main stream of Time, only throw the pebbles in sooner than planned, who knows maybe pile them high enough to divert its course._  
  
_I leave this here so when people (you) come looking, what’s left of the world can know. We tried to save you._  
  
_My time is coming, and while I could slow the moment’s arrival, I find my heart filled with anticipation._  
  
_My name is Ravi… no, my name is Kim Wonsik, and I am the last of the chronomancers._


	2. Chapter 1

“Do you think he’s dead?”

Sound.

“I don’t know, man, could just be a vagrant trying to get some sleep.”

More sound.

“Do you think he’s a necro?”

Ravi really wished there would be less sound.

“When’s the last time you saw a necro with blue hair? Nah, looks more like a hacker.”

“If he was a hacker, I’d know about him.”

A soft rustling noise and he could feel hands on him, moving him, shaking him? It was hard to be sure. Leaping just over 600 years back in time tended to take it out of a person, and fine motor control was still just beyond reach. All he was capable of was trying to keep his mind clear enough to reboot.

“Whoa, what are you doing?” The voices were slowly coming into sharper relief in his mind, they sounded young, or relatively young probably around his own age. Sometimes, when time held little meaning for someone, it was easy to forget how few years he’d actually lived. The hands on him started rifling through his clothes, seeking pockets. “You can’t just steal from a maybe dead person!”

“Eh, if he’s dead he’s not going to miss it.” He wasn’t dead.

“And if he’s not dead?” Which he wasn’t, and he very much would miss whatever the little urchins were planning on taking.

“Meh.” Was the only non-committal response as Ravi felt his body being moved this way and that. “Shouldn’t pass out in the street then.” Slowly, sense by sense was coming back to him. Hearing, touch, taste; he could feel the grit and grime from the street in his mouth, the acrid flavor coating his tongue. Scent, that too was coming back though he wasn’t sure if the stench of the place was residual memory of the time he left behind or if the past truly smelled that bad. And sight, mentally he willed his eyes to open, to grant him the ability to see shadows at the very least.

Gradually motion returned in waves, a growling grunt as he slapped a hand away from him and rolled onto his back. With care, Ravi slit his eyes open, but was met with only blessed dark barely invaded by the fluorescent glow of a neon hologram against a stone laid wall. It was… quaint almost, but what could he have expected from a time so far gone.

“I don’t think he’s dead, Hyuk.” As his eyesight began to come back to him, two shapes began to form. First from shadow and then growing slightly more detailed the longer he tried to focus his eyes. The hair caught him first, both of them were blonde, almost painfully bright blonde. The one near him had his up in slight tufts around a soft face with an all too sharp jawline. The boy standing back behind him wore his shorter locks down, fringed against his forehead and stood hip cocked and as if he were almost posed.

The one nearest him, the one the other had called ‘Hyuk’ stumbled back slightly, and stood tall, dusting off the hem of his shorts. They both looked down at him, neither making a move to help him up, and Ravi could all but see the cogs turning in their minds. He didn’t have time for this. or rather he had all the time in the world, depending on the point of view.

Taking a deep breath, Ravi exhaled a faint pink essence that twined in circles around his body. As it wrapped in wisps around him he could see the world around him, the world so familiar and yet not, come to a grinding halt. The two young men were set in stone, one’s hand lifted half-way up to shove the other.

All around him time had stopped, and he could feel the familiar pressure at the base of his skull, a gentle reminder that he’d used up nearly all of his energy just getting there and his short dirt nap was not nearly enough to rejuvenate him. “You have to move now, Ravi,” he chided himself and forced his muscles into movement. Slowly sitting up, it was his first chance to really take in where he was. In that eerie silence that frozen time brought with it, Ravi set eyes upon a world that had been dead for hundreds of years.

It was jarring to realize that a cozy little town could stand then where eventually the great city Gaulmin of the 10th Holy Empire would be constructed. Gone were the massive gleaming towers of white stone and glass, the smoothly paved roads wide enough to accommodate even the grandest parade of victory.Though it had been years since the Empire had any reason to throw such a parade. It was all a very far cry from the bumpy dirt roads and humble brick and stone homes of the village he saw before him.

Research told him that the village was called Murgeu, and it stood so far on the outskirts of Arxist that people barely considered it the territory of the Starlit Kingdom. History informed him that it was one of the first to fall to the invasion and it, along with a few other border skirmishes, would be just one of the many sparks that caught fire to the guns of war. But he had time yet, if his calculations had been correct.

The pressure at the top of his spine pulsed and he knew the spell was waning. Dusting off his legs, Ravi stood, his muscles protesting in ache. He looked out of place in blue and white jacket and pants, but then again everyone seemed to do so to a certain degree to his eye, but his own fashion was off. He hoped nobody noticed too much. A quick check of his pockets assured him that everything he needed was still on his person. The collapsible rifle that had been a gift from his long time friend before he left for his own event in history hung at his side, and the book that he’d poured hours into refining, that stored all the historical data he could find about the war was safely tucked inside this coat.

Sound rushed back into the world a second before movement. That always struck him as strange, even from the first time he’d learned to weave manipulation through the threads of time. It should have been movement first and then sound, but someone had tried explaining to him that you didn’t just stop movement and therefor the sounds they make, you stopped sound in mid… sounding. To be honest, it still rankled him a little.

“Whoa!!” the one without a name lept back, nearly into Hyuk’s arms as time resumed its flow, “how did…” his words trailed off but they were both staring at Ravi with wide eyes. It was cute almost how they held onto each other so casually, arms wrapped up in each other. A soft pang in his heart reminded him that he’d once had friends that he could be so connected to… but that was years ago. “He’s a void speller.”

“No way, that’s not how casters move. You can see them go through their portals, this was…” Hyuk looked to Ravi with questioning stare. “What are you, man?”

Good, they didn’t seem to be hostile. Ravi wasn’t sure he had the juice to escape if they were, but the display had done its job, it had caught their attention. “I’m Ravi.” He offered with a small smile and dip of his head knowing that it would never explain it.

“That’s not what I… ow! Hyung!” Hyuk darted look to his companion who had just been starting to disentangle from him before pinching him and giving him a look that must have had more meaning than Ravi took it for. “Oh, sorry, I’m Hyuk and this is Youngjae.” They both gave an awkward sort of half bow before Youngjae nudged his friend again. “Jeez fine,” Hyuk sighed, shoulders slumped and shot a brief apologetic look his way. “Sorry I thought about stealing from you. Now, will you tell us how you… teleported?”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Ravi gave his own half bow before straightening with a lopsided smirk, “tell you what. Buy me a meal and I’ll tell you a story and maybe my secret.”

“Deal.” Hyuk reached out to clap him on the arm even before Youngjae could eek out a token protest. It might not have been exactly how Ravi planned to start his search, that had been meticulously thought out including some independent research so as not to cause waves, but sometimes you fought fate and sometimes you just followed where it led. Plus, a meal was never a bad idea.


	3. Chapter 2

It turned out, when Hyuk and Youngjae weren’t trying to steal Ravi’s possessions, they were a couple of entertaining dinner companions. The small cafe they’d picked out was cramped and smoky, but had a vibrancy of life that Ravi had never once seen in his life. The wooden walls were cluttered, perhaps too cluttered, with dated holo screens and wooden plaques carved deep with words that must have meant something to someone. Everything just seemed too thrown together, a mishmash of tables, chairs, holo lanterns, and tankards. Every inch of space was dedicated to giving a place for people to connect.

What was it like to live in a world so brightly alive? Reading the history books hadn’t prepared Ravi for the sudden feeling of nostalgia for a world not his own. At the College, once, there had been many people but it was never so… high-spirited. Even before he’d been born, everyone had already suspected the end was coming. From the moment he’d been labeled a chronomancer his world had narrowed into how to stop the end.

And knowing that it was all going to come to a crashing halt for those people there, loud and boisterous and so involved in their own affairs. They had no idea that in less than a few months a legion of soldiers would roll through their lives, lock down the small down, and probably use that exact cafe as forward base of operations. Who knew how many of them would die, or be inoculated into the invading army. Would the town mount a resistance? Those were the small kind of details Ravi didn’t have access to. But one thing was sure, seeing the town, feeling the heat of bodies pressed so close in revelry was leaps and bounds different than reading about the little village’s destruction in a book. It made him sad but it also served as a much needed slap of reality.

It was no longer the past, it was his present. And to save it he was going to need to look at through more than just a historical lens. Somehow it had always felt more manageable, more do-able when he’d thought about it clinically, but seeing it made it too big, too much. Glancing across the table at Hyuk and Youngjae, reminded him that these were real people, real people who were long dead in his own timeline. But here, here he could try to save them, here they were still alive. It hit Ravi just then, it wasn’t only the future he was trying to save.

“You okay, man?” Hyuk tipped his head to the side examining Ravi with both concern and interest, running fingers through the messy strands of his hair. “Look like you’ve seen a ghost.” A slightly devilish smirk quirked his lips as he nudged Youngjae in the side with his elbow, eyebrows riding high on his forehead.

“That’s not funny, Hyuk,” but Youngjae shot a look over his shoulder where Ravi had been staring, scanning the crowded bar and tables, looking for something. “You’re gonna jinx us! You know this sort of place is the perfect hiding place for a necro. They, I don’t know, get drawn to these sorts of places!” He spoke in what could only be a whispered shout, as if mentioning them would draw necromancers to their location.

His companion only gave a delighted cackle, bodily throwing himself into the laugh. It made Ravi smile quietly. If he’d had the energy he might have even slowed the moment just to soak in the youthful glee that he felt like he’d never had. But his body was far from ready to try and cast, he wasn’t even sure how long it would take to recover. He’d never once gone back so far in time, never had even really dreamed of it. Naive of him, assuming the others would succeed.

“I can’t believe you’re honestly afraid of necromancers. You’re more likely to get stabbed and roasted by an angel than you are to even meet a necro. What’s that saying? They’re more afraid of you then you are of them.” Hyuk slid his fingers over the inlaid holo menu on the table, flipping the display up to blink between them. “Get anything, my treat.” He gave a slightly gummy smile and went back to looking over the selections.

“That’s wild animals, dummy,” Youngjae nudged him back but it hardly moved the still laughing kid. “Necromancers are literally the things nightmares are made of. You’ll change your mind some day if you actually meet one.”

“Doubt it.” Hyuk shrugged and tapped a few items on the projected menu, they briefly lit up before shooting down to the table display signifying the order had been sent. Ravi mindlessly went over the menu while thinking about what they’d said. To be honest, Hyuk wasn’t too far off. As he recalled, by that point in history necromancers had been wiped out so extensively out of fear that it was rare to find one as most had become adept at hiding. A troubling prospect considering Wonsik had to find one with a grudge.

The food items available all seemed a bit foreign to him. Cuisine had changed in 600 years but he understood the basics behind what was listed. Honestly, it was probably better than anything he got back at the College. Pre-packaged and pre-processed and pre-cooked food in little boxes and bags had always paled in comparison to the pictures of grand feasts from the past. Settling on something that sounded like a delicious soup of noodles, egg, and beef, Ravi tapped in his order and smiled again at the two across from him. “I could tell you why I’m out of it, but I doubt you’ll believe me.”

“Try me.” Hyuk challenged with a twinkle in his eye and settled his arm companionably around Youngjae’s shoulder as they waited expectantly. They had, after all, been promised a story.

Ravi me their looks with a grin but shrugged. If they didn’t believe him, which he suspected they wouldn’t, then that was okay. He could at least get some information out of them. “What month is it? What year is it?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?” Youngjae’s brow quirked, slightly amused until Ravi shook his head, “Did you hit your head on something? It’s the 25th day of Hanpash, the year 381.” Which only confirmed that he was exactly where he’d wanted to be.

“Well, when I woke up this morning it was the 3rd day of Montseo,” Ravi started and waited a beat for the outcry.

“Bull,” Hyuk called him out, his face unimpressed. “Montseo isn’t for another four months.”

“From the year 1004.” He finished, waiting to see the reaction.

“That’s impossible.” Youngjae rolled his eyes even as a quick moving server strolled out of a shimmery grey portal by their table setting the food out in a blink before moving on in a puff of hazy grey-blue smoke. “You’re right, I don’t believe you.”

A harsh wheezing sort of laughter was coming out of Huk as he leaned over his plate of grilled intestine. “A time traveler? Really? That’s the best you could come up with? I’d have gone with the necro wearing contacts route if I were you, at least then you’d have gotten a fright out of this one.” He bumped his friend again who shot another furtive look around. “So, what’s it like in the ‘future’,” Hyuk exaggerated the word like it was some joke, “are we all living in pods?”

“Well,” Ravi knew they weren’t even remotely close to believing him. “It’s pretty grim. The world doesn’t have many resources left or very many people. The lands been falling in on itself all across the map and it probably won’t last too many more years. The food’s bland and stale” Ravi spooned up some of the soup out of a bubbling broth in a hot stone bowl and basked in the aroma of fresh food, “but that’s mostly due to the lack of resources like I said. And there’s a College in the last city that was home to a lot of researchers, all of which agreed that the only way to save the future was in the past.

“Every chronomancer in the land,” he got another snicker at the term, “was gathered and sent back to different times to try and alter events that help shaped the world. And I’m one of them.” Ravi sat back, waited, brows up expecting another verbal backlash, but all he got in return were two of the most skeptical faces he’d ever seen. That was fine though, he’d rather have that than outright laughter. “That’s how I ‘teleported’ as you saw it. I stopped time and got up, moved around a bit but you weren’t aware.” More nonplussed stares.

The silence drew on for several uncomfortable minutes. He nearly thought they were going to purely ignore him as they both seemed to simultaneously turn to their food. Just as well, he thought, it wouldn’t do to have them asking too many questions about it anyhow. And then he turned to his own meal. He was ravenous and his suspicions had been correct, the food was so much more than he was used to.

But after a few more minutes of eating quietly, Hyuk tipped his head back and gave a considering look toward him. “If what you say is true, and I don’t think it is,” he qualified, “then why would you come to such a dull time period? Are you saying something disastrous is about to happen?” He laughed and it cut Ravi’s heart, if only he knew.

“Well,” Ravi stopped a moment to consider his words, “not if I succeed in doing what I came here to do.” He offered a brief and what he hoped was winning smile. “I could use some help though.”

“Here comes the pitch,” Hyuk rolled his eyes but gestured for him to continue. The holo menu floated back up between them with the total of their meal flashing in red, a check waiting to be paid. “Just a sec,” with a mischievous smile, Hyuk’s fingers took on a brief yellow glowing aura that seemed waver gently before turning hard and bright and shooting straight from the tips into the table console itself. The whole thing fitzzed out for a couple of seconds before lighting back up, the check total listed in green, paid in full. And a small robot head stamped where the electronic signature would go. “Okay continue.”

“You’re a technomancer.” It was Ravi’s turn to look at the boy with interest. He sat back and surveyed them both, blond hair, brown eyes, and clothes that looked nearly as out of place as his own. “You both are.” They were text book technomancers, too obvious that he hadn’t even picked up on it.

“No need to sound so formal about it.” Youngjae laughed and smiled. “Yeah, we’re hackers.” But it was more than just that. With the right equipment anyone could try hacking, but a technomancer, they could speak with a system on an intimate level. Could even live inside of one if the need arose. In his years at the College, Wonsik had only ever met one technomancer, the man who kept their failing archives running just a little bit longer. He’d had the same mirth in his eyes too. “I’m Jokomato.” Youngjae held out a hand like this was the first time they’d been formally introduced.

It was a tag or callsign, as Ravi understood it. Used the same way that his own codename was, a screen to cover up an identity. Though Ravi was his screen to keep him from intersecting with anyone he might have potentially been related to, the technomancers used it as a designation to others of their kind and in many cases to keep a criminal and personal life separate. Sometimes even to be used as an alternate or more true identity. It was almost certain that the technomancer he was looking for would use one.

“Mine’s a secret, sorry,” Hyuk laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “Just call me Hyuk.”

“ROVIX!” Both Youngjae and Hyuk jolted at the loud scream that echoed across the cafe. A young man in lightweight dark armor stood at the door, face twisted in anger and staring right at them, gleaming silver knives were held up in his fingers.

“Or maybe not so secret,” Hyuk bit into his lip and glanced at Ravi trying to gauge him. “You want my help? We run on 3.”

“What?!” But there wasn’t any time.

“Three!” Hyuk didn’t wait, a flash of yellow light burst out of him and then danced along the walls before the whole room went dark. “Run!”


	4. Chapter 3

Ravi ran. He didn’t think, didn’t question, only joined in the mad dash as Hyuk and Youngjae bolted out of their seats. As far as he knew, the building only had the one exit which was currently blocked by the assailant, but Hyuk instinctively ran through the crowded place as if it were empty.

Youngjae and himself, on the other hand, were having a much harder time of it, especially in the dark. A million hushed apologies and grunts trailed them as he kept bumping into confused and increasingly growing frustrated patrons. Somewhere nearby people had started yelling for the bartender to flip the circuits while the same voice that had yelled earlier hollered for order, and then made a couple of colorful threats aimed their direction.

There had been but a second to see the pursuant before Hyuk had thrown the place into madness but what he’d seen had been clear. Silver hair, dark pointed armor, and blazing yellow eyes that seemed to shift and shimmer like moonlight. They were never going to be able to outrun a voidcaster on foot. And from what it had sounded like, this one had a score to settle with Ravi’s new found friends.

They crashed through a door that led into the kitchens of the cafe, Hyuk still as fleet footed in the lead while Youngjae and Ravi stumbled after. Fire leapt up from heavy iron stoves, the only light to guide them while someone scolded their backs for entering. There was no way to confirm if the man was following them but judging by the rising commotion in the main room, someone was kicking up a fuss, whether it was the patrons or the man Ravi wasn’t sure.

Light flooded a rectangular patch in front of him as Hyuk threw open the rear door, the silhouettes of other buildings in the moonlight. With a relatively clear shot, they rocketed from the building clearing it with ease but Hyuk didn’t stop running so neither did he. It was lucky that he’d been able to eat as much as he had, already he could feel his stamina draining again, heart pounding loudly against his ribs. He’d always known that when he went back in time he’d have to face some sort of action, but he still felt unprepared. Living inside the walls of the college, even with classes for physical conflict, could never have prepared him for the straight adrenaline that came from true fight or flight.

“I thought you said you took care of that!” Youngjae yelled as he kept pace beside Ravi, voice going slightly breathy. It was enough to shake Ravi out of his own thoughts.

“I thought I had!” Hyuk returned over his shoulder even while he took a sharp left to dart inside of a darkened alley. It was narrow and slowed him down, but not by much, really it gave them a chance to catch up to him. “How was I supposed to know he’d figure out the fake so quickly?”

“The fake!?” Youngjae’s tone slipped up higher as he reached forward to bat at Hyuk’s shoulder with a fist. “You said you gave him what he wanted!”

“I gave him what he thought he wanted.” The younger replied with a snorting giggle.

“Who is he?” Ravi asked, somewhat more seriously than either of the other two were acting.

“Some Starlight Knight, Sir Hagyon or something. I don’t know he’s been after me for… a little while, a week? Who has time to remember?” If being chased by a member of the Starlit Order, one of the most well oiled and deadly fighting machines in the world at the time, frightened Hyuk, it certainly didn’t show. That was, if the guy had really been a knight. Privately, Ravi wondered just how often Hyuk got into trouble with others.

“Okay, but why is he after you?” Honestly he didn’t expect an answer, but he’d learned there was rarely a poor time to ask questions.

Hyuk turned to look back at him, just slightly, an amused gleam in his eye. “I hacked him, got some super secret military something or others, I don’t know. I needed an eyecatcher center piece for my next auct--”

“Quiet, Hyukkie!” Youngjae reached up to punch Hyuk again just as they cleared the cramped alley. “You get too free with your words when you’re excited.” But it was clear enough, or at least Ravi thought it was. Hyuk, codename: Rovix, stole Starlit Kingdom military secrets from this knight and sold them to the highest bidder at an auction. It was no wonder he was being hunted.

“Meh,” the younger kid gave another giggle, “who’s going to believe him? He thinks he’s from the future.” Another cackle as he increased his pace since they were in the open but he quickly changed speeds again, coming to skidding and faltering stop, nearly face planting into the hard dirt.

Ahead of them a ring of blue-grey smoke appeared to the side of the road. Rapidly the center filled with a shiny and almost liquid in appearance dark purple substance before the man from the cafe slid out from it, braced into a battle position with his knives at the ready. And that was why they never stood a chance in a footrace against a voidcaster. Space and distance were all but a non-issue for them.

There came no warning, no request for surrender, with an ethereal grace that was both beautiful and lethal the man threw out his arm, firing one of his knives with laser like precision and speed. Ravi lept to the side as he saw Hyuk dive out of the way as well. Without thinking, Ravi drew his collapsed rifle from its side holster, the weapon unfurling itself as he raised it up to get a bead on the attacker, adrenaline kept panic from setting in at his first taste of real world combat. To his left, he saw from his peripheral Hyuk raise a sleek and streamlined laser pistol and duck behind a tree.

They both braced for battle until a soft gurgle snapped the line of concentration. “Youngjae!” It wasn’t his power at work but it felt like everything was running in slow motion, himself included. Turning, Ravi saw Hyuk throw his gun aside in a sprint that moved like molasses to get to Youngjae’s side. The blonde haired man was flat on his back in the middle of the road, a silver knife stood straight up from his chest, lodged deep inside him, an exclamation point to the blood pooling and seeping into his clothes.

Hyuk’s face crumpled in an instant, eyes going red as fat tears slid tracks down his cheeks. “Hey, you’re going to be fine. This… this is nothing. Just a scratch.” His voice cracked every few words, and Ravi forgot for a moment that there was an angry Knight facing them down. The past was so different. In his time people had stopped warring, stopped fighting, the battle was no longer with each other but with a fate that wouldn’t be stopped. Everyone knew that they were going to die; it never came as a shock. But he could see the disbelief clouding Hyuk’s eyes, the desperation for a do-over.

Ravi attempted to reach inside himself, to scrape the well of power so he could try and give him that chance but there was nothing to be found. There were just no reserves to be utilized, he’d be lucky if he could rewind time a few seconds let alone the amount required to try and warn them. And of course there was no guarantee that it would ever work, meddling with the course of time and all that.

“Rovix,” reality came flooding back as Ravi snapped his head up to gaze into those shimmering yellow eyes, unreadable but with something that seemed to leave them darkened slightly. The knight, and he was starting to believe that’s what he was, stood over them more gleaming knives in his hands. “You’re to come with me to face judg-” he swallowed thickly and Ravi noticed a minute tremor in his fingers and tone, “judgement for your crimes against the Kingdom of Arxist.” His voice steadied out and became harsh but Ravi saw his eyes keep leaping to Youngjae’s still breathing body.

“Shut up!” Hyuk shouted hoarsely, the tears having clogged his throat, and he didn’t look away from his friend’s face. Youngjae’s hand was clasped tightly between Hyuk’s as they shook. “How could you do this? He’s not even the one you want! He hasn’t hurt anyone!” Gingerly, Youngjae reached up to lightly punch Hyuk in the arm, the movement making him cough and rattle another breath. “And you,” Hyuk looked down at him, “you stay still. Don’t waste energy; you’re going to be okay.” He kept repeating that.

It felt like too private a moment for Ravi to be watching but he could only stay kneeled, staring helplessly. Above them the knight floundered slightly as well, mouth shaping into a soft ‘o’ of shock at the outburst before what could only be a wave of guilt slid over and off his face. “It’s not a killing wound.” He mumbled having lost most of the authority to his voice. “Step back.”

“Fuck you!” Hyuk shot a glare up at the man briefly. “I’m not letting you near him. You’re going to have to get through me to finish him off.”

But the knight only lowered his hand, biting his lip nervously. “I can remove the blade and seal the wound, but you have to move.” The sympathy in his voice had Ravi lifting one brow up high, wasn’t this the same man who had just tried to kill them? “Please.”

Youngjae reached up again and patted Hyuk’s hands gently. “It’s okay,” his voice wheezed in reedy breaths, “let him. And run.”

“You shut up too,” Hyuk knuckled away a tear before hesitantly releasing his deathgrip and scooting back, sitting on his haunches, arms wrapped around his knees. “I’m not going anywhere, so you can stop looking at me like that.” The Starlit Knight was indeed watching him, seeing if he’d heed Youngjae’s advice.

Ravi watched with bated breath as the armored man kneeled down beside the prone form, setting his hand over the blade. That same blue-grey smoke whisped into being around his out stretched hand and for a second it appeared like the blade sunk completely into Youngjae’s chest, pulling a shriek of horror from Hyuk but it had merely fell into a small portal the knight had created, another connecting to it appeared at his side, the bloodied knife falling harmlessly to the ground.

A deep sucking sound could be heard, slightly muffled, from the portal on Youngjae’s chest as blood dripped in resounding splats against the dirt from the second portal. “I’m clearing out some of the blood in his lungs.” A look of concentration and concern contorted his face as he seemed to be manipulating things unseen. Finally, he shut his eyes and took back his hand, both portals disappearing from view except for an extremely small patch of that liquid like deep purple substance over Youngjae’s wound. “He’ll live… for now.”

“What do you mean ‘for now’, you bastard?” In an instant Hyuk was upon the man, tackling him to the ground with his fist raised. For a moment Ravi thought to step in and try to separate them but the scuffle was over almost before it began. Like lightning the other man had rolled with the momentum, using that unnatural grace to flip their bodies, pinning Hyuk to the ground with a knife that seemed to appear from thin air at his throat.

“I mean you better listen to me, Rovix, or your friend is going to die!” The hard tone was back in his voice, reinforcing the point as if the knife weren’t enough. “You see this blade?” He held it right in front of Hyuk’s eyes, the moonlight reflecting off the gleaming silver that seemed to make it waver in appearance. “It’s tipped with a poison that will slowly kill him. So, I suggest you start opening your ears and shutting your mouth for a few minutes.”

Ravi half expected Hyuk to make some snarky comment on principle but was surprised when he only narrowed his eyes to a glare. “It was meant to disable you,” the knight continued without letting up the pressure from holding the technomancer down. “But you dodged and let your friend take the hit.” Hyuk winced like he’d been struck.

“Who goes around with killer poison throwing knives?” Grumbled Hyuk, but his face was crestfallen, his heart not in the scoff.

“People hunting criminals.”

“So you were going to kill me?” Ravi wasn’t so sure he still wasn’t going to from the way that knife was held but kept that to himself.

“I said to disable you.” The void caster shook his head, “And also, I haven’t had the chance to replace them.” A dark look passed over his face. Regret? “But there’s an antidote, in the Grand Court of Adamrah.”

“Go get it then! Or are you going to let him die?” A minor struggle broke out between them but only resulted in the knife pressed closer to Hyuk’s throat. “Go on, kill me too, you coward.” It felt to Ravi like he was watching one of the immersive holo videos from the college, watching a historical event take place in reverently recreated detail. But this was no video, yet he couldn’t force his body to intervene. Was this what the laws of Time meant?

The knight barked out a short and sharp laugh, “I’m the coward?” For a second Ravi thought he was going to finish the deal, but there was only another huff of laughter. “Return what you stole and come with me to face judgement and I can get the antidote for your friend.”

“I don’t have it anymore.” He might as well have cold clocked the void knight from the stupefied look he gave.

“What do you mean you don’t have it? Who has it?” Panic bubbled up into his voice, erasing any sense of ease or calm.

“I don’t know, someone! I sold it okay? Yesterday, I sold it to some guy. Why the hell else would I be out in the middle of no where?”

“You sold it!? You sold the codes and accesses of the defense subroutines to the Grand Court to ‘some guy’” Hysteria reared its ugly head as the knight got off of him to pace madly along the trodden dirt path, hands lifted to cover his face, nervous energy flying off of him in waves.

With a final glare toward his back, Hyuk went back to Youngjae’s side reaching out to rest his hand over his friend’s. “Yeah, I sold it. So, can we go get the antidote now?”

“No!” he spun back around to gape at Hyuk, like he was explaining something simple to a child, “I can’t go back unless I have it. Do you have any idea what you’ve done? What will happen with those codes in the hands of almost anyone?”

“I don’t care!” Hyuk snapped. “You killed my friend!”

“I’m not dead yet, Hyukkie.” Youngjae offered a weak smile, his fingers wrapping around Hyuk’s.

“Who was it? Who did you sell it to? Don’t you dare say ‘some guy’ again. I have to find them!”

“It was an angel, okay? I sold it to some military guy, Jung something or other.”

The color drained from the knight’s face, his eyes going wide as he ran a hand through his hair. “We have to catch him. Now. Immediately. That information can’t fall into the hands of Holy Empire.” He resumed his pacing. “You said it was yesterday? Then they don’t have a head start, and Torbinas is a long ways from here.”

“Couldn’t they just transmit it?” Ravi hated to be the bearer of bad information but it seemed like everyone was missing a key point.

“Impossible.” Hyuk shook his head, “I tried to break that encryption but I couldn’t. That data has to be handed over or lifted directly off the machine it’s on. Trust me, I really gave it a good shot.”

“Exactly, so we still have time.” With a look of determination, the silver haired man turned back to them. “Your friend has time yet, a couple of weeks at least, maybe more if he’s careful about his breathing. I told you it was only meant to disable you. We have time to go and take back what was stolen. Help me do that, and I’ll get you the antidote.” Before Hyuk had the chance to protest or make any sort of comment he added, “Please, if I lose that… I’ll never get to return home. It was my last chance.”

And suddenly it clicked in Ravi’s head. A disgraced void knight and an outlaw technomancer. Could it have possibly been that quick? “What’s your name?” Ravi asked, standing, finally, and stowing his gun in its holster. Was it fate? Or was he being too hopeful, too eager to believe he had a chance that he was mistaking the situation for providence?

“Sir Cha Hakyeon, knight of the Starlit Order, loyal servant of the Kingdom of Arxist.”


	5. Chapter 4

The empty and sterile halls of the Tacom Building held an unnatural echo as the two men crept down a corridor on the 43rd floor, as if something more was pressing at the metaphysical seams of construction. A phenomenon that seemed to affect all of the last free city, Rinsha.

“He’s arrived.”

“You always love to talk in riddles, don’t you?”

Cloaked in more than just mere shadows, like pieces of light and darkness swaddled around him to keep his features from lining up straight, the taller man laughed but it came across distorted and disjointed.

“The one in the prophecy, he’s finally arrived..”

“How do you know?”

“It’s what you pay me to know, isn’t it? Have I steered you wrong yet?” Another displaced laugh, the sound of gears grinding almost in the distance.

“I suppose so.” The compatriot of the man gave a dubious look but sighed heavily, pausing to lean against a doorway. “How do we continue?”

“Pick a target and send one of the dolls. Better to use an automated, no soul.”

“We’ll send Ken.”

\------

“Can’t we take a break yet? I want to call and check on Youngjae.” Hyuk asked for the 3rd time in an hour. Under the strict eye of Sir Hakyeon, the trio had made decent time in pursuit of the man Hyuk had sold the defense codes to. Ravi has been surprised, to his pleasure, at just how quickly Hyuk had taken to the agreement. Perhaps he hadn’t seen the use in arguing further or he just felt the seconds slip by each moment they delayed.

It had been luck, or maybe fortune, that there was an empty room at the tavern. The room was paid in full for two weeks and Hyuk had wrenched a promise from the owner that they’d make sure Youngjae stayed fed.

A brief but intense squabble broke out over the bill, but Ravi had stepped in and put a stop to that. A small but precious advantage of coming from a time long after the current year. Their currency was pathetically easy to copy. Though blatantly illegal, how could anyone expect him to save the world and worry about scrounging up cash?

Still, with room and board handled, none of that had stopped from Hyuk’s constant wishes to stop and check on him. But Hakyeon was right, they needed to keep moving. “Later, the next village, I promise.” Ravi acquiesced as they kept moving forward. Even with the aid of the void portals, they still had a lot of lost time to make up. If he had been on his own it would have been a simple matter, but he wasn’t. Plus, they had crossed the border from Arxist into the Holy Empire, and their tread needed to be much softer.

“What if he’s died?” Hyuk prodded once more, incredulous. Not for the first time, he’d questioned just how valid the explanation Hakyeon had given was, so sure that Youngjae would expire at any moment. It’d led to more than one argument on their way.

“And what if the Holy Empire invades Arxist? Have you ever stopped to think about something that wasn’t immediately related to you?” The tone Hakyeon took was almost painful to hear, stripped and shredded into a bitter and raw state. Ravi hadn’t had the chance to really get into the history of him yet, but what he’d gleaned had painted the picture of a duty bound man on the last spit of very shaky ground.

It didn’t pair well with the ‘only in the moment’ attitude Hyuk had seemed to adopt. “They’d deserve it for trusting those codes to someone as inept as you!” For the twentieth or so time, Ravi paused time and rewound it. The familiar give and flow of the timestream was a comfort to him, like an old friend. An old friend who helped keep the peace as he reached and placed his hand over Hyuk’s mouth just as he made his retort.

As time started again all that could be heard was the muffled jeering followed by a sharp glare tossed over Hakyeon’s shoulder as he ripped open another space in the void for them to travel through. It’d been like that the entire time, after the first misplaced barb had nearly put a knife through Hyuk’s gut, Ravi had taken it on himself to keep it from coming to blows.

To say his spirit was sad at the idea that these may be two of the fabled five he was looking for was an understatement, but the legends had been fairly clear in one regard. There had always been conflict inside the group. As much as he was disheartened by the clear animosity, it simultaneously made him hopeful. The same hope that carried him toward the 3rd Holy Empire’s capital city of Torbinas, the seat of power for the Angels and his best chance of finding the half breed of legend.

“Jeez, can’t you just magic us up a portal all the way to Torbinas?” Ravi gave a silent prayer to the Gods of Time for more patience. At some point, he hoped, Hyuk was going to run out of things to say to try and get under Hakyeon’s skin.

And like always, Hakyeon could hardly let the words go unanswered, “No, and even if I could, that’d hardly be advisable.” He gave an exasperated sigh as if he were explaining something simple to a child. “Knights are hardly the most welcomed guests there, and we might miss your buyer. Better to keep up pace and hope we catch him before he can reach the city.” A sidelong glance and he sneers softly, “Couldn’t you just hop into the network and track his movements?”

They both knew neither of their requests were doable, but it seemed that trading barbs had become how they passed the time. The Holy Empire seemed a long ways off. Taking his life into his hands, Ravi stepped into the middle of their glaring contest. “We’ll catch him, don’t worry.” They must, or someone must, he couldn’t recall the Angels having access codes to Arxist’s core defenses but didn’t mention it.

It made him wonder. If these two were indeed the legends of old, how did they ever manage working together? “Sir Hakyeon?” Ravi ventured quietly, trying to pull the subject from their mutual dislike. “Could I ask about the state of Arxist currently?”

“I…” the knight started once but snapped his mouth shut and ripped open another hole for them. “I couldn’t tell you.” The sensation of slipping into the void disoriented Ravi every time they did it; the brief dislocation from time left him a little nauseated. It was only a blink, less than that really, but he imagined it was a feeling he’d never grow use to. “It’s… I just need to get back is all.”

“Yeah, about that,” Hyuk started, rolling his eyes slightly, “Why were you even out so far with codes like that? Seems pretty irresponsible,” he laughed and his eyes crinkled in a way only the young do, “unless you were looking to sell them. In which case, no you can’t have some of my profit” He added with a sly smirk causing Hakyeon to stalk over with his hand reaching inside his jacket for a knife.

Ravi stepped in to push them both back a little before Hakyeon had the chance to get in and do some damage. “Do your other profits ruin so much?” There was no way of ceasing the war of words though. “I’ve learned much about you in the time since we met, Rovix.” Hakyeon spit the name like it was a curse. “You and your auctions, your cutthroat and ruthless profit only attitude. Selling secrets, plans, livelihoods, the blood of so many people. How many lives have you ruined? Do you think you can just live your life without any regrets to the harm you cause?”

“You think you’re better than me?” Hyuk scoffed and swiped the back of his hand under his nose.

“I know it! What do you know of honor? Loyalty? Purpose? You’re just a child.”

“I’ll show you a child!” Ravi could have stopped him, maybe he should have, but he didn’t. Standing back, as an observer should, he watched Hyuk launch himself at the night. Watched the way Hakyeon took the force to the chest like a freight train and tumble back. He could have intervened, but Hakyeon also could have avoided the tackle. But maybe they both were coming to realize that avoidance was never going to help any of them.

They tumbled and rolled along the dusty road, fists flying and teeth gnashing, speaking in the only terminology they both could understand. The way of the fist. Small bits and phrases made their way out of the din of the scuffle. Criminal, failure, delinquent, murderer, until slowly all the words seemed to blend into something closer to sobs.

It didn’t take long, but it also took forever. Yet, when the dust settled over two very out of breath bodies, Ravi sensed like something more had happened than just a scuffle. Nothing so cliche as a healing, he was sure it would take a lot more than just a fistfight in the dirt to get that, but maybe a start. An airing of the metaphorical room as Hakyeon reached down to pull Hyuk from the ground.

“The next village is close,” the silver haired knight wheezed slightly, “we’ll stop there.”


	6. Chapter 5

As it turned out, the one thing Hyuk and Hakyeon had in common (other than their shared laughter any time Ravi mentioned he was from the future) was that they were both tireless. A smattering of small villages had gone by in a blink. Checking to see if an Angelic officer of the Holy Empire was in residence was easy enough. Every person they spoke with was eager to announce that Lieutenant Jung had been there and through on his way to the Capital.

And it seemed they were slowly gaining on him, if the stories they were told were no exaggeration. By the time they’d reached their fourth little town, it sounded as if they’d only just missed the angel by a couple of hours. Though it was becoming progressively harder as well. The towns were turning from single road little outposts to sizable settlements, and each step drew them deeper into the heart of the Holy Empire. Which meant that they had to rely less on Hakyeon’s portals and more on keeping up pace on foot. A truce may have stood between the nations but there was no need to invite speculation of a Void Knight spy circling closer to the Holy City.

It was funny to Ravi, to consider that they were in danger there when in his time the Holy Empire was the last standing bastion of safety and decency. It wasn’t that he couldn’t see just how different the 3rd and 10th iterations were, or that he didn’t know the very bloody past of his home nation. But it still felt a little strange, stranger still to imagine that they were closing in on the Holy City Torbinas. The long standing capital of the Empire for seven iterations, it was a merely a crumbling ruin in the future, a place the pious trekked to on pilgrimage. Or well, they used to when such things were commonplace. He could only imagine what sort of state it’d been in since the tenders had fled to Gaulmin.

Stenyae. The city loomed over them, the wide walls suited for battle were less than welcoming, but Ravi could only hope that within would be the man they sought. Though it was a different matter entirely for how they were going to manage to get the information from this Lieutenant Jung while they were in the territory of Angels. Hyuk seemed confident that there was no way he could just hack it off the hard disk by proximity like he had to Hakyeon. Spouting off rather proudly that ‘his products were far more secure than anyone else’s in the country. Guaranteed protection from other Hackers,’ but that just made their position worse. Getting so close to a Lieutenant of the Consecrated Legion would be no easy feat, stealing from one inside the Holy Empire would be even harder. That was a matter for when they were closing in though.

By Ravi’s count there should still have been time before the war broke out between Arxist and the 3rd Holy Empire but to hear it from Hakyeon, tensions had been steadily rising amid the bordering nations for a long time. It explained why he seemed so nervous in his dark armor as they wandered past the sentry at the gate to the city. A hard eye following Hakyeon’s movements. Officially, the Empire and the Starlit Kingdom were at peace, and thus there was no reason for suspicion but the tone of the city said otherwise. No wonder the knight had feared the information falling into the Angels hands. With what he’d described on to the hard disk, the Empire would be able to march straight to the Starlight Palace without much resistance.

“Big place.” Hyuk whistled slowly as they cleared the gates and were greeted with the large circular hub of the city’s first market. Makeshift stalls dotted along the cobbled street, merchants hawking their wares from under the canopy of gossamer scarves and tents. Despite being well into the Empire’s territory there was a surprisingly diverse crowd milling around. Angels with their glossy sleek wings of black or white, technomancers with their blonde hair, and more than a few Arxinians. “Give me a sec and I’ll download the map of the city.” For a moment Hyuk held his hand out toward an electronic directory, a yellow glow trailing off of it, almost invisible in the fading sunlight. “Got it.” He grinned, pleased with himself before tapping the pads of his thumb and middle finger together and spreading his hand open.

A hardlight map sprang into the air, creating an aerial view of the city in flowing neon orange light. Hakyeon and Ravi huddled around the technomancer to better see it. “The military sector.” Hakyeon pointed toward the northwest quadrant of the city that seemed to fan out like a clam shell from the central hub they stood in. “Our best bet is probably there. Since he’s a ranked officer, he’d find accommodations there I’d imagine.”

“Depends how quickly we caught up with him.” Hyuk shrugged and pointed toward another place on the map. “He’s traveled a lot, my guess? A bar, and the best ones are gonna be in the entertainment district.” A slice of the top middle of the map became highlighted with blue while Ravi pondered if they purposefully were disagreeing with each other on principle or not. “Hell, he might not even be here yet, what if we passed him?”

He’d considered that, as his stomach had been trying to realign itself after one of the trips through Hakyeon’s portals. In theory they could have passed him with the great measure of distance they seemed to cross in the blink of an eye. “Then we’ll have more time to plan.” Ravi shrugged but it’d be a welcome break if they could. He still felt like he was drained, and having to play mediator between Hakyeon and Hyuk hadn’t helped his energy stores any.

“I still say we start with the military quarter. They’d at least be able to tell us if he’d checked in.” The knight crossed his arms over his chest, shooting a challenging look to Hyuk.

“Sure,” the younger boy rolled his eyes dramatically, “because that doesn’t make us seem suspicious at all. In case you couldn’t tell, none of us really look like Empire material, something about the lack of wings gives us away.” He gestured wildly toward his back before smirking and casually reaching his hand over his back, a slight yellow glow being cast toward a stall of power converters and data drives.

“And what? You want to scour every bar in the city on the off chance that we don’t miss him somehow?” Hakyeon strolled right up to Hyuk and went toe to toe with him, looking up to meet the taller boy’s eyes straight on.”You should know better than to waste time, Rovix.” Mercilessly he slapped at Hyuk’s hand and cut off the shining light. “And stop stealing!”

Hyuk winced slightly before narrowing his eyes, “Don’t. Call. Me. That. My name is Hyuk out here.” The two of them glared at each other for a moment more. “And you don’t need to remind me about time, this is your fault after all.” For a second Ravi was almost sure they’d come to blows again, but Hyuk broke the stare off. “Fine, the military sector first, if only so I can laugh at whatever dumb plan you have to try and get an officer’s whereabouts from the personnel office.”

Ravi waited… and waited, but his travel companions continued to glower at each other. “If we’re going we should hurry,” softly, trying to be the voice of reason he stepped closer and laid a hand on their shoulders, “any lead we have now diminishes with each second.” Another beat and they turned away from each other with a sharp nod. Once more Ravi had to wonder at just how they ever managed to come together in the past… present… other present. Time did strange things. Or maybe these two weren’t even the ones he was looking for. A disheartening thought for sure, and one he couldn’t afford to ponder.

Even with his abilities, if he tried to second guess his every move, he’d waste what little chance he had. No, he had to believe that he was on the right track. Even if it did seem impossible, even if the laws of time were against him. He had no choice but to believe.

“Helloooo?” His trance broke as Hyuk waved his hand in front of his face a few times. “Listen I know you think you’re a time traveller or whatever, but for the moment I’d really appreciate if you stuck in this timezone, okay?” A delighted peal of laughter accompanied the boy bending over and clutching at his sides again. It was the pattern that seemed to follow any time someone mentioned the idea of Ravi coming from the future. All traces of the animosity he’d just displayed vanished in the moment of mirth. It seemed to be how Hyuk lived, from moment to moment experiencing only the present. He had to wonder if that was how he really did never feel guilt for what he did.

“Shhhhhh,” Hakyeon grabbed them both by the back of the shirt collars and dragged them off to an alley. “Stop making us look even more suspicious.” Utterly unamused, he motioned further down the side street they’d stepped into. “This way.”

The farther from the central entrance the more austere the buildings and streets turned. The din of life and people seemed to fade until an almost eerie quiet surrounded them. Not complete silence, the occasional sounds of a cart being pulled over the rough streets or the clash of blades ringing against each other punctuated the calm. Every now and then the shadow of a team of Angel soldiers raced over the road. But the lack of pedestrians really showed just how out of place they were.

Light from Hyuk’s map served to assist them as the sun sunk lower. Both a good and bad sign. Chances were that their target would stay over in the city, but it also meant they were running out of time to continue their search. Somehow having a timer on them made everything seem more imposing, especially the tall marble columns and hard ridges of the Legion’s personnel office.

Hyuk was right, how were they going to ask after their Lieutenant without arousing suspicion? “Can’t you hack their database? See if he’s checked in or something?” Hakyeon griped as they stood in a side street near the military sector’s plaza.

“Maybe, but there’s no guarantee that I could find it or that they keep their records like that.” Hyuk plucked at his lower lip as he considered their options. “I’d have to get closer to have a shot at hacking their system though, if it were crowded I’d say it’d be no problem but this,” he gestured out to the empty roads, “this isn’t exactly made for blending in.” Frustrated, he kicked at a stray pebble and shot an accusatory glance at Hakyeon, “Why don’t you like portal away the list or something.”

“I can’t even begin to tell you how much that doesn’t make sense.” the knight dismissed the notion with a flick of his hand. “I don’t see how we can do this without just walking in and asking for assistance.”

“But then we risk tipping him off that we’re looking for him.” Ravi added, and shook his head. “And we’re back to being suspicious.”

“You’re already suspicious, Ravi.” Hyuk chimed in and snorted. “Why don’t you do the weird time freeze-y teleport-y thing you did before?”

“So you believe me about the time thing now, huh?” Hope sprung in his voice.

“Not even a little bit.” the younger boy snorted and shook his head, “but you can do some weird ass talents, maybe they could help.”

Ravi deflated somewhat, they were never going to believe him. “I wouldn’t know what to look for. Besides, how many Jungs do you think there are in the Consecrated Legion?” It left them at a standstill of course.

“Man, they’re gonna close before we come up with something.” the technomancer sat on the street and kicked his legs out, the heels of his shoes bouncing off the ground. “Ravi, you go ask. At least they won’t have any clue what to label you as. I don’t think they’ll buy the time traveler story either.”

Somehow that wasn’t comforting, but he wasn’t wrong. And as far as exit strategies, well Ravi definitely had the best. Still, he was apprehensive at best. “I hate to say he’s right,” Hakyeon chimed in, a look of consternation crossing his face as if it really did cause him pain to agree with Hyuk on anything, “but you may have the best chance of not tipping him off.”

This wasn’t how Ravi had hoped it would go, but then again, he didn’t even know what to hope for. Pouring over the pages of history felt like such a long time ago to him, not the few days it had been. He wished for more time, a thought that nearly made him laugh. How could he think he’d been prepared?

“Alright, you two stay here and… I guess be prepared to disappear if we need to.” It felt useless to say it. “I’ll be back.”

Each click of his heel against the wide short steps felt like he was coming closer to his first test as an emissary for the future. A foreboding sort of dread welled up in his chest as doubts ate into him. How much was he screwing up? Had he already gone wrong? Was this what they meant by the laws of time? What if he was the reason everything failed? What if he was the catalyst to ruin? Why hadn’t he thought this through better?

Up and up, until the towering entrance could engulf him in the mouth of the building. If he weren’t so nervous he’d find it ridiculous, what was there to be scared of? Even in the primitive time of the 3rd Holy Empire they didn’t murder people for asking questions.

Caught up in his own thoughts he didn’t notice the scene inside the office until the crash of broken stoneware snapped him out of it. The gleaming blade of an angel’s sword was lodged directly into the stone floor a couple of meters in, a pedestal lay in fragmented pieces on the ground and the shards of some piece of pottery glittered across the ground.

“Listen to me, dammit!” And time stopped.


	7. Chapter 6

It would have been beautiful if it wasn’t so terrifying. The blade lodged into the floor was in the middle of igniting as time froze around it. The wisps of flame caught in a freeze frame, elegantly framing the cold metal. Now that Ravi had a minute, he could fully examine the room and just what was happening there.

A hand was wrapped around the hilt of the blade and attached to that was the form of a tall black winged Angel, one of two in the room though the other had wings of white. His wings were spread in a display of threat and Ravi could see his face drawn into tight lines of aggression, dark hair hanging to frame his cheeks; his other hand gripped a book, lifted up to almost brandish against the other person in the room. From what he could remember from the history books for the 3rd Empire, the black winged angel wore the stiff coat of a military officer.

Across from him, still seated at a desk and looking for all like she was the calm of the storm was a white winged angel, her long silver locks pulled back in a tight bun and the rank on her shoulder already higher than the other. If Ravi had to guess, she was the personnel officer and this… well he wasn’t qutie sure what this was supposed to be. Clearly some sort of insubordination but it seemed a touch extreme; he took another glance down to the igniting sword.

In the back of his mind Ravi could feel the gentle pulse that was his stamina draining but this wasn’t a situation he wanted to just walk into. Deciding he’d rather take his chances once this had passed he started to step back out of the office until the nameplate on the black winged angel’s coat caught his eye.

Jung Taekwoon

Was this their Lieutenant? Ravi tried to pull back the page of military ranks from the early consecrated legion but he couldn’t recall just what that insignia was. It was going to be trouble if he was, somehow Ravi didn’t imagine a polite diplomatic entreaty was going to work on this man. Carefully, he retreated back to the steps up to the room as he felt the tether on time loosen, a slight pink glow in his eyes fading as sound rushed to his ears, the eruption of flames and a harsh order barked out.

“Stand down, you are out of line Jung Taekwoon.” The office official stood with a dramatic display of her own wings, facing off against the other. “And you’re making a scene in front of a foreigner.” She sniffed once dismissively and gestured to where Ravi had made his entrance through the pillars. At once he could feel the heat of anger on him as this Taekwoon whipped his murderous gaze around onto him. “I told you the matter is closed. Your commanding officer arrives soon and I suggest you clean up this mess before he gets here. This is no place for your tantrums.”

“You’re still not listening.” Ravi backed up quickly as the dark haired angel tugged his blade free from the floor and kicked at the shards of pottery littered on the ground. “There is a necromancer in Torbinas and we’re just going to sit here and do nothing?” A necromancer in Torbinas hmm? Ravi was sure he could make use of that information, after all even in this time necromancers were few and far between.

“You’re an officer of the Consecrated Legion, not some civilian sniffing for rumors. Hearsay is not enough, and you know that. You know that no one considers your mother’s blood when viewing you. You don’t have anything to prove Taekwoon.” The lady got a slightly sympathetic look on her face before it slipped away as if it were never there. “Now stand down and stop wasting my time.” She sat once more, the matter done with to her mind.

“I’ll deal with it myself. Tell my brother I’m going to Torbinas.” And with that the dark haired angel pushed past Ravi with one more stern glance, his wings spreading out as soon as he’d cleared the building before propelling him up into the sky.

It wasn’t until the 3rd “Can I help you?” that Ravi finally realized he was being spoken to. The white winged lady standing right in front of him snapping her fingers in his face. “Sir, can I help you?”

“Ah, Jung, I was looking for Lieutenant Jung.” Ravi stammered out shaking his head and hopefully the fog out of it. “I… was that him?”

“Afraid so.” She smiled and a flash of memory spiked through Ravi’s systems. Warm, gentle, a safe place and a summer wind. An ache welled up inside his chest suddenly and he found it hard to breathe. “With the way he’s acting, it wouldn’t surprise me if he really did fly his way to Torbinas.”

“Th-thanks.” The strangest sensation wavered around Ravi’s heart and he bowed once before stumbling out of the office, hand clutched to his heart and a ringing in his ears that his body told him definitely wasn’t natural in any way. He nearly stumbled on the last couple steps but found hands catching him, steadying him. The concerned faces of Hyuk and Hakyeon above him signified he must have fallen to the ground. For some reason he felt like crying.

He’d always wondered, wondered why the older chronomancers had said it was imperative to avoid direct ancestors. How they had to use fake names just in case even a hint of a relation could be made. He’d always wondered why people didn’t go back to see the people they loved, especially in their world where everyone was dying.

But now he understood. Understood in a way that was all too clear. He didn’t need anyone to tell him he’d just brushed with an ancient grandmother of his line. Didn’t need anyone to say that the disorienting sickness he felt was the feeling of his own timeline brushing against itself, threatening to tangle and snap. He’d never once before felt so… fragile.

“...dark, we’ll need to stay somewhere.” Voices above him reminded Ravi that he wasn’t alone, or even home. The warmth and disorientation were beginning to ebb, the flow of time rushing back around him, the familiar weight of it was a comfort to him.

“There’s still time, we could check the entertainment sector now.” Hyuk argued back, but then again what else did he do when he was speaking with Hakyeon? Ravi rubbed his palm against his throbbing temple and sat up. “Dude, are you okay?” A momentary halt to their war, both Hyuk and Hakyeon glanced down at him again. “What’d they do to you in there?”

He couldn’t very well explain that he’d met his however many great-grandmother. First of all, they’d never believe him, and secondly, it wouldn’t help their position any. To be honest, he didn’t want to tell them, the distortion may have been fading but the sudden ache and reminder that he’d never see his loved ones again was all too real.

No, no he’d made up his mind when he left, when he’d agreed to take his place inside the larger plan. Like his parents before him, Ravi had agreed to throw away his future to save the world. There was no shame in that, no fault, it was the right choice. They’d been sure of it and so was he, but it didn’t lessen the hurt. The very same hurt he’d felt when his mother had sit down with him for their last meal together, the night before she’d left to her own troubled point in history.

“I believe in you, my beloved son.”

“Just a little light headed.” Ravi pushed himself up from the ground, dusting off his pants, a soft breath blowing out as he tried to screw his head back on straight. “Did you guys see the angel who left, black wings, flaming sword?”

“Kind of hard to miss him, dummy.” Hyuk flicked him in the forehead and snorted.

“That was Jung.” And he was already way ahead of them on the way to the Holy City.

“Um, no, it wasn’t.” Hyuk countered and his eyebrows quirked down.

Ravi paused and stared for a moment trying to discern whether the Hacker was joking or not. “Yes, it was. The Officer inside said as much.”

“Maybe it was a Jung, but the guy I sold it too had white wings, dude.” Hyuk shrugged once.

“Wonderful, so we’re back to square one, and we’ve been chasing a ghost this whole time.” A growl of frustration punctuated Hakyeon kicking the ground before he whirled back on Hyuk a finger raised to point into the boy’s face. “This is your fault. You purposefully withheld information to slow us down and lead us around on some… some ridiculous chase.”

“Why you…” It didn’t take a genius to see where this was headed, and yet Ravi felt himself too slow to intervene before Hyuk had leapt at Hakyeon, the both of them tumbling to the ground. “If it wasn’t for your stupid poison…” Fists were flying between intermittent words, “He could be dying, you asshole… why would I waste time then!?” The two of them fought so hard, Ravi thought he felt the ground shake and heard the earth shatter from an impact but that was just absurd. His mind was still clearly fogged.

“Um… excuse me?” A bright but slightly off voice called out to them, comically pausing them all in mid stance, a fist raised to strike. But the seeming distorted quality of the voice caught all of their attention, as did the massive crater surrounding the man it came from.

Spiderwebs of cracks and upturned stones circled out from where he stood, the street all but utterly destroyed. Yet the new arrival seemed undamaged, or even unaffected at all from the crash. Tall, with deep auburn hair swept back from a long face with the exception of one boyish curl, eyes the color of captured lightning and dressed in all black. A massive maul that easily weighed more than any of them perched carelessly over one of his shoulders and warning bells were sounding in Ravi’s head. 

“I’m looking for a chronomancer, you seen one?” Again, the voice that came from him seemed just slightly wrong, filtered through some mechanism, but Ravi couldn’t see any apparatus. The genial smile the stranger offered only seemed to make it worse. A chronomancer. How could… how would anyone in this time possibly know about them?

“What’s it to you?” Hyuk shoved back from Hakyeon, and cocked his chin up, challenge in his entire stance. If he was surprised or scared by the destruction in the street he was doing a good job of covering it up.

“Well, you see,” the stranger lifted the maul with one hand and let the head fall to the street with a thunderous crash, grinding some of the loose stones into pebbles under it’s weight, “I’m here to kill him, and I heard he looks a lot,” those strange lightning crackling eyes zeroed in on Ravi, “like you.” 

Before Ravi could even react he saw death coming for him, the weapon that would take three of him to lift was on it’s way toward him and all he could do was watch. How would having his insides turned to jelly feel? It wasn’t his ability that seemed to slow time around him, rather it was the natural adrenaline that let people experience moments with almost perfect clarity. Three feet, he could make out the scars and nicks in the enormous hammer’s head, and red swaths that he imagined were stains of blood. Two feet, the sheen of the handle showed that every component was metal. How could he even manage to lift that, let alone one handed? One foot, this was the end.

And then something strange happened, where his gut had tensed for impact there was none. Instead, he watched as inch by inch the hammer vanished into nothing, a puff of gray smoke the only indication it’d been coming. “Fuck!” that distorted voice cried as Wonsik saw the exit of Hakyeon’s portal set up to the side of the attacker, the weight of the blow had barely knocked him off his stride, the heavy weapon clattering loudly to the ground.

“Pay attention!” The knight yelled at him as he darted forward, the deadly tipped knives fanning out from his hand in a small arc. Small pings rang out as the knives fell harmlessly to the ground, seemingly bouncing off the assailant. “What?”

Ravi dove for the side of a building, hoping to gain some cover while his brain processed what was happening. An automaton, an honest to god android, they’d… they’d always sounded like fables in the history books. No concrete information had ever been recorded about them, they’d appeared as ghosts almost for an era and then disappeared as suddenly as they’d came. Most at the College had simply accepted them for myth, a high standard that cultures had clung to. How the hell were they supposed to fight a legend?

Steel rang out against metal, the hard scrape of unforgiving surfaces drawing Ravi’s attention back to the matter at hand. “You dare to make war in my town?” Sparks showered from the man’s arm, a blazing blade lodged into it’s forearm. The angel’s white wings were spread, flapping forward to propel her back and into the sky. “I don’t know who sent you, but they can have you back in pieces.” Maneuvering high, she twisted around to dive down, sword drawn back to attack and was met with a backhand to the jaw even as her sword slashed into the man’s chest.

“Grandmother!” Ravi screamed before he could stop himself, watching the angel slam into one of the pillars of the building and slump to the ground. The machine turned back to face him, head twisting around first before his body followed suit to match. A long crimson line began to dribble from the cut in his chest even while more sparks sputtered from severed wires. Blood… machines didn’t bleed… Unphased, he lifted the hammer once more, taking slow steps toward Ravi.

“Don’t make this hard, okay.” The man’s voice grinded even as he came closer, his steps slowing, almost faltering. The closer he got the louder Ravi could hear what seemed like the whir of machines and gears, crunching in a way that even his untrained ear could tell wasn’t right.

“Mr. Knight!” Hyuk yelled from behind them, fists bright with yellow light. “How about an exit? You can manage that can’t you?” Sweat beaded on his brow with effort as he set his ability against the firewalls and countermeasures stored inside their attacker. He’d never seen such coding and encryptions in his entire career and it was all he could manage to try and slow the man’s leg movements, let alone his full frame.

Knowing a losing battle when he saw one, Ravi gave the nod to Hakyeon, worry eating him up as he glanced back toward the still from of his ancestor. “No!” the cyborg screamed as Ravi stepped back into the utter darkness of Hakyeon’s portal, the void inside swallowing his vision until there was only black.


	8. Chapter 7

Silence, an unusual companion for the three of them, settled around their steps, the waking sun stirring bring light back into their realm. They’d left the city Stenyae with little word to each other, a quick series of portals and scans that had left all three of them exhausted. But nothing could be done, they were facing off against two enemies, the hunt for the white winged Lieutenant Jung and escaping whoever… whatever their attacker had been. No one seemed too eager to discuss what had happened, or to ask questions, they’d all simply agreed that continuing on to the Holy City of Torbinas would be the best course of action.

As the military capital of all of Kynaseul, even someone as formidable as their cyborg attacker would have a hard time causing a scene. And no matter if they’d been chasing a shadow or not, in the end Lieutenant Jung would have to bring his stolen information to the city. Catching him before he had the chance to transfer the data would be a long shot, but it was better than nothing, as Hakyeon had said in a defeated tone.

Eyes on the ground, Ravi kicked a pebble along with his toe, setting it farther ahead of them until he could catch up to kick it again. Conflicted didn’t even begin to describe just what he was feeling. He hadn’t come back to the past expecting everything to fall into his lap, but he’d certainly though he’d be helping, making things better, doing good. Had that all just been… hopeless ideals? Since making the leap back it felt like he’d only facilitated a quicker end to the era. History said that the war between the 3rd Holy Empire and Arxist was long and drawn out, with massive destruction on both sides. If the Angels of the time had access to the defense codes, then a swift victory would have been all but assured. Was that his fault? If they got them and attacked, had it been because of his intervention?

What’s more, had he destroyed his own timeline? The image of the nameless ancestor slumped against a pillar haunted him whenever he closed his eyes. No, of course not, he kept telling himself, if she died it would have… he would have known wouldn’t he? That sort of thing would create a paradox, and he wouldn’t… wouldn’t exist if that happened. But research into that matter was speculative at best. It was true that certain actions left ripples that corrected themselves and realigned with the time stream and others had ground shaking consequences that gave rise to new problems and solutions all together. But everyone had been too fearful of whatever killing an ancestor might cause to their own timelines. So in the end, he didn’t know.

“So…” Hyuk’s voice cut through the fog in his brain and he turned to look at the younger technomancer. “Are we just not going to talk about how I saved all our asses back there?” 

The familiar smug lilt in his voice was almost comforting. For the first time in what felt like an eternity Ravi cracked a smile, cheeks bunching up. “Thank you, Hyuk.” He reached up and ruffled the blond hair, his hand getting batted away playfully.

A very defined and obvious clearing of the throat sounded on his other side and he turned with an equally bright grin to bow toward the knight who had kept his innards from becoming mush. “Thank you as well, Hakyeon.” It was enough to make him snort out a soft laugh, the tight ache in his chest loosening slightly. How could he ever possibly have faced this alone?

“Still,” Hyuk raised his finger to draw the attention back to him, “I know I’m not really one to talk about odd technical marvels,” considering Ravi knew for fact that the Technomancers had an entire world hidden from view inside their “Network” and that they could disappear into it from specific server entrances that was an understatement. “But are we really not going to talk about the mechanical man for lack of better terms?”

Curious, Ravi bit his lip. If anyone was going to know about the android… no cyborg, he’d have expected it to be Hyuk. “A-are they not known in this time?” He asked cautiously. The 2nd and 3rd iterations of the Holy Empire had been a time ripe with stories of the automatons. He’d have expected them to at least have heard a legend.

Hakyeon tutted twice through his teeth, head shaking, “Silly boy who thinks he’s from the future,” it had become the affectionate nickname Ravi got every time he’d mentioned anything of the sort, “robots exist, of course, mostly in Network hubs like Rinsha but that wasn’t just a robot.” The knight’s face grew more serious and contemplative, “Robots don’t bleed, they don’t have that sort of… personality. And they certainly don’t attack people like that.”

“Hate to say it, but he’s right.” Hyuk chimed in, stretching his arms up and resting his hands behind his neck. “I’d seriously know if something like full bodied cybernetic augmentation had hit the market, and it hasn’t. People have tried, and the only thing that happens is they wind up dead. The body just can’t handle that invasive of a process. Replace an arm? Sure, hell even some innards are replaceable, but that guy back there? That’s impossible according to everything we know now.”

Ravi laughed, he couldn’t help it, “As impossible as a man from the future?”

“Sounds about right.” Hyuk snorted.

“But that’s the problem isn’t it?” Hakyeon looked deep in thought, brow furrowed, “He shouldn’t exist… but he was looking for a… chronomancer, was it?” Ravi nodded and waited for him to continue. “Another impossible thing. More importantly, he was looking for you, Ravi.” The thought was there, he could see it on Hakyeon’s face, but the other man didn’t seem to want to let the truth escape his lips. It was hard, having everything you thought you knew get flipped upside down. “Could he be from the future too then… if we considered the possibility that you are, in fact, a time traveler.”

“Not likely,” there wasn’t anything like that from his timeline either, and it probably didn’t come from after his time either. But that did beg the question, if not from his time, how could he possibly have known who Ravi was. It was possible that he’d somehow overheard him speaking about it if he’d been following them since Mergeu, but even that raised its own problems. No one should have been able to predict where Ravi would surface in this time.

A sick feeling filled the pit of his stomach as another thought struck him. The only other person who could try and predict something like this would be another chronomancer. And that should have been impossible. Even with everyone in the college rallying together, there were no two chronomancers that had overlapping time periods. So how could someone from this time even know about chronomancers without him telling them? They didn’t emerge until the 8th Holy Empire.

Realizing that he hadn’t finished his thought, Ravi continued, ignoring the strange looks both of his traveling companions were shooting him. “I’ve told both of you, from when I am there aren’t the kind of resources required to make something like that.” So that meant it either came from the current timeline or someone else, another chronomancer, had sent it back from a later point in the timestream. Sent it back with instructions to kill Ravi.

“So,” Hyuk started biting the corner of his lower lip, “let’s say, for fun, for like one second, that I believed you were from the future, which I don’t,” he qualified, “then could you please explain what it is, exactly, that you’re trying to do here? Or why some cyborg killing machine would be after you?”

“I told you already, I’m here to stop disaster from shaping this world.” He still wasn’t sure how deep into the details he should go, especially since neither of them seemed ready to budge on believing him.

“Yeah, okay, but how? Even if you could control time, which is ridiculous by the way, you’re still just one person. One man versus disaster? Got a pretty high opinion of yourself, don’t you?” Hyuk scoffed and shrugged, already dismissing the idea.

“Because it’s not me.” Ravi muttered.

“What?” confusion was written all over Hakyeon’s face. “So, you’re here to watch?”

Taking a deep breath, Ravi made up his mind. He’d been trying to avoid sharing too much of the truth with them, afraid it would somehow influence something. Not to mention that the chances of them believing him were slim to none. But he just couldn’t see the point in keeping it hidden; already he was feeling like he’d disrupted the course of history, what was one more drop in the bucket? “Sort of,” he started, quietly, pausing in his step, “something really bad is going to happen, soon. Originally there was a group of people who tried to stop it, legends so to speak, nameless, faceless, forgotten heroes who died too young.” He watched their faces to look for the tell tale signs of scrutiny and disbelief, but just found rapt attention.

“They tried their best to stop the… the bad thing that’s coming, but they failed. It isn’t even until the next iteration of the Holy Empire that they’re even remembered. That the story emerged about them. At the time, they were just people who fought for what was right. No one even could appreciate what they’d tried to do until they were dead. Which leaves me in a bit of a predicament, you know?” Ravi sighed, and began walking again, no point in wasting time they could be traveling. He could do both. “I’m supposed to find them, help them.”

“Do you even know who they are?” Hyuk asked, for once the tone of sarcasm absent from his voice.

“Not precisely…” Ravi admitted quietly, “I know the legends. I know general ‘facts’ about them. Listen,” when he said it all out loud, even he had a hard time believing he was ever going to do anything besides screw up the world worse than it was. “I know this sounds crazy. And I know you guys don’t believe me about the future, but… I’m telling you it’s all true. War’s gonna break out, soon, and it’s not even supposed to happen like this. The 3rd Holy Empire didn’t reach the Grand Court for months, and they certainly didn’t have defense codes. But it is coming, and I need to find the heroes… to help them.

“You haven’t seen the future I come from. It’s horrible. Everything’s ruins, nothing works the way it should, population’s at an all time low. People have just given up hope, nothing grows. I can’t let that happen. Even if it’s a fool’s errand to try and fight fate, to fight the laws of time. I have to try. At the end, and it is the end where I’m from, all that matters is what you’ve done with your life.” The same thought that had kept him going thus far, but it rang a little empty along the lonely road to Torbinas. “And, if I’m going to die, I’d rather do it some place where I can get a decent last meal, right?”

“Dude…” Hyuk shuffled over awkwardly and nudged him with his elbow. “I don’t know if you just have a really bad case of overactive amnesia or if you’re really from the future, but I’m sorry man. That’s rough.”

“I believe you.” Hakyeon had stopped in his steps, and they with him. “It’s hard not to, even a crazy notion like being from the future. I believe you, or I believe that you believe it. You didn’t have to come with us to try and help me, but you did. So, I believe you.”

Ravi’s eyes burned, the dirt in the wind he told himself, certainly not tears. A pent up breath exhaled and he felt years worth of anxiety crashing on him. “It’s not that simple.”How could he tell them he thought they were the heroes of old? That history said their deaths would happen within the next few years? “I told you that I know general ‘facts’ about the ones I’m searching for, right?” The both nodded and waited for him to continue. “It was a very diverse group, you see? A void knight, a technomancer, an angel, a necromancer, and a defector from the Tacom company.”

“The electronics company in Rinsha? Really? Why would they need to have a defector?” Hyuk snorted before sobering up, offering a small shrug by way of apology.

Ravi knew he was gambling a bit, revealing too much history, but it was only fair. Trying to keep them in the dark simply felt like he’d be leading them on. “Because they orchestrated the war.” A grim line of determination creases his brow. “And they’re responsible for the destruction of leadership inside both the 3rd Holy Empire and the Starlit Kingdom. And when the ashes are blown away, two superpowers were destroyed and the only real strength left in the world was the neutral third party, the last free city. I believe that’s what they call a coup.”

“When you say the destruction of leadership…” Hakyeon’s face had gone slightly pale, “you don’t mean… the Grand Court… the Queen, the Prince?”

He didn’t need to go into detail about, but Ravi nodded solemnly. The royal family of Arxist and the Holy Emperor were all eliminated during the war, even more, no full resolution ever came to light for any of their deaths. Suspicions of assassination abounded though, and honestly, Ravi tended to agree with the notion.

“We have to warn them! The royal line cannot fall, I swore an oath to protect them. It’s my duty, it’s all I have.” Panic bubbled into Hakyeon’s voice, his grip on Ravi’s arm almost crushing in strength.

“I thought you couldn’t go back.” Hyuk sneered and shrugged, much less invested in the well being of either nation.

“I…” An anguished look crossed his face as he released Ravi’s bicep to wring his hands together. “They have to know. They have to prepare.”

“You don’t have any proof, dummy.” Hyuk snapped, “besides Ravi’s word which, no offense, isn’t going to be taken as fucking sterling. Most people are going to think he’s crazy, and they’ll think the same of you if you start talking about unverified assassination attempts.”

He wasn’t wrong, but it did little to soothe Hakyeon’s fretting. “That’s why I’m here though,” Ravi offered what he hoped was assurance. “To stop this, all of it, to correct it. And…” he breathed deep, trying to settle his racing heart, “I think that… that the two of you? I think you’re… you’re the legends I’m looking for.”

“Me?” the technomancer snorted derisively, “I think you’re running in the wrong circle, friend. It might not have occurred to you yet, but I’m not one for causes.”

“And while I’m flattered,” Hakyeon added, “I… I really don’t think I’m the knight you’re looking for. I can’t… I can’t show my face there just yet.”

Of course they wouldn’t believe him, Ravi didn’t expect that they would. “I know you think that, but I think otherwise. I… there are facts, certain knowns.” He probably sounded crazy to them, but that was nothing new. “Such as a renegade technomancer who operates outside all laws?” He glanced to Hyuk, “or an outcast Void Knight looking for redemption?” Hakyeon choked quietly. “Those were two of the heroes of old. Heroes I see before me.”

“Didn’t your ‘heroes’ die in this story?” Hyuk’s face was no longer amused, a slightly sour look twisting his lips.

“That’s what I’m here to change.”


	9. Chapter 8

Ravi couldn’t have looked more like a foreigner if he’d tried. The wide roads of the Holy City Torbinas, teeming with life and vibrancy, felt like a page straight out of a story book. A soft pang of nostalgia he had no right to echoed through his heart. Along with a keen edge of anger, as equally unjustified, that even in only a few short years the streets would be sacked. Nevermind that in his time it was gone and done, in this time he felt betrayed on the city’s behalf.

“Where do you go?” Hakyeon’s voice drew him back, startling him slightly, eyebrows raised high on his forehead. “When you get that far away look in your eye, where do you go?” Since Ravi’s ‘big reveal’ his two traveling companions had kept to their own company. He wasn’t sure if that was because they didn’t believe him or if they were wrestling with his prediction of their deaths. Either way, he hadn’t found reason to disturb them. If it’d been him, he was sure he’d have wanted time too.

“It’s not important,” Ravi offered a small smile and shrugged. They had more important things to be focusing on. Namely their needle in a haystack hunt for the defense codes of Arxist. Not to mention he was going to be keeping his ear to the ground for news of the supposed Necromancer in the city. But it was a big place, and finding somewhere to start was going to be the hardest step. “Sorry, so, thoughts about where we go from here?”

The three of them stood in place, shrugging as the crowd around them surged forward. “How about a little more information on this Lieutenant Jung we’re hunting? After last time, I think that’s important.” the Knight crossed his arms over his chest, an expectant and slightly annoyed look on his face.

“Well, you could have asked.” Hyuk huffed, raising his hand to tap at a small circular metal plate just behind his right ear. From under his hair a beam of blue hard light half circled his face at eye level. Seemingly searching for something, he stood still as his natural talents went through the motions of searching the database he was in. “Let’s see, where are you? Ah, there you are!”

Hyuk reached up again and manipulated the small disc again as a small 3d hologram shot out from the blue beam visor. The angel shown wore the same military style jacket as the one Ravi had seen in Stenyae, his wings were white and folded on his back. The man had a slightly pointed face, almost boyish, and silver hair that just barely brushed his eyebrows. Definitely not the kind of person that Ravi would have assumed was a decorated member of the military.

“And you couldn’t have found this sooner?” Hakyeon scowled and scrutinized the man in the hologram, as if he were committing every detail to memory.

“Like I said, you didn’t ask.” Hyuk pouted and transferred the hologram from the HUD display to a hand held pedestal before shutting off his visor. “And it doesn’t matter anymore, can’t go back and change it.” He shrugged and handed the portable device to the silver haired man. “Guess we go asking around for him. I mean, I could try and hack their camera network but I’ll need a hub and a guard and some really good luck and honestly we’re a bit short on all of those.” He didn’t much fancy his chances hacking the cameras on the fly in the very heart of Angel territory.

“Well, I guess asking around is better than nothing.” Ravi smiled at them both, he hoped it was encouraging. He had the distinct feeling they were going to need all the support they could get

“Do you at least have a full name for this mysterious Angel?” Hakyeon sniped, arms still crossed over his chest.

Hyuk scrunched his face into an annoyed look before shaking his head. “I told you already, it was just Jung. You know, believe it or not, most people don’t want their names getting out there in illegal black auctions!” The fact that he was annoyed with people not wanting to give full name rather than the fact that there were black auctions spoke volumes about his priorities.

“We could try taking the holo to the personnel office, get an ID for him.” Ravi offered helpfully.

“Cause that worked out so well last time.” Hyuk scoffed but shrugged, “whatever works I guess.” He flung out his hard light map again, the system having updated itself to show Torbinas’ map. The captial was a much larger city than Stenyae had been, and nearly a quarter of it seemed to be the military district, smack dab in the middle. Trailing a finger over the light lines, Hyuk traced a path from where they stood toward the center of the city. “If we go through here, Tynin Row,” a small side street seemed to wind past buildings, avoiding the crowds of the large streets, “then we should be able to get there without risk of getting lost.”

It was as good a plan as any. With nods all around they set off, making a cut through the crowd toward an opening between tall stone buildings. Unaware that more than one pair of eyes had been on them. A lone figure perched on the spire of the city gate watched as the three boys slipped out of the square. “Found you.”

Tynin Row may have been a short cut but it was by no means short. Echoes of “my feet hurt” and “carry me” kept them company along the modestly sized road. Tall building shot up either side of them, almost too high, relegating the sky to a narrow strip of blue overhead. Of course when your race all had wings to fly about, the height of a building ceased to be a problem.

“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Hakyeon had taken to casually leaning against Ravi, and the chronomancer was beginning to realize that using normal travel methods was probably out of the norm for the void knight. But with tensions a little raised they’d all agreed, even Hyuk, that they were better to stay on foot, nice and non threatening like.

Hyuk rolled his eyes and turned around to walk backward facing them as he did so. “This will spit us out right at the entrance to the military sector, and have we got there yet?” He didn’t wait for a response, “no, so no more pointless questions please.” Ravi reached up to pat Hakyeon’s head, more as a method to pre-empt to coming retort than to comfort. But it seemed he was even too tired for a full retaliation, just muttering a grumbled complaint under his breath in Hyuk’s direction.

“Why don’t they have transportation hubs?” Hakyeon whined slightly, pouting, “In Adamrah we’d have been there by now. They have carts that can take you anywhere in the city, even though we all can jump through the void, we think about the people visiting.” He said it all in a tone that conveyed just how much he felt Arxist was superior to the 3rd Holy Empire. “Isn’t that thoughtful? Isn’t that nice?”

“In the Network we can just program a vehicle to take us where we want.” Hyuk said in the same slightly superior tone, though it was obviously meant to mock him.

“Other people can’t go to the Network,” Hakyeon sniffed once and rested more of his weight on Ravi. “And Adamrah is clearly more beautiful than this place _and_ the network. You can’t even see the sky here.” He glanced up toward the towering buildings once more fretfully. “In Adamrah you can always see the stars and the Moon, all you get here is stupid sunlight and buildings, bleh” Of course, the country of perpetual starlight, the sun must have been harsh on the knight’s eyes.

“Ah, don’t worry,” Ravi’s back went ramrod straight at the sound of a slightly familiar distorted voice joining theirs. There was no mistaking the slight grind that seemed to underlie the tone, “when I’m done with you, you won’t be able to see anything.” Turning with Hakyeon still on his shoulder, Ravi knew who he would see.

The cyborg from Stenyae stood behind them, giant maul dug into the ground and he was casually leaning against it. Ravi could see that he wore the same black outfit he had in the previous city, the slash in the chest from the angel still there. But what showed behind the material wasn’t what Ravi had been expecting. Unmarred flesh sat pristine where the deep cut had been. Gone were the sparking wires or the dribbling line of blood.

“You three left our game before I could finish killing you.” He held up his finger and wagged it back and forth like they were naughty school children. “That wasn’t very nice of you guys.” Somehow mentioning that trying to kill people wasn’t very nice either didn’t seem like a good idea. “I had to chase you _all_ the way here.” The red haired cyborg pouted. Ravi sincerely hoped Hyuk was working on hacking him again, though he was beginning to doubt Hakyeon had the juice for another fast escape. “But now at least I can finish the job.”

With an ease that still boggled Ravi’s brain, he watched the man heft the massive hammer and begin to walk toward them. “Hyuk…” Ravi muttered under his breath, suddenly feeling the strain of Hakyeon’s weight as he tried to back them up.

“I’m trying,” Hyuk hissed back, the yellow glow around his fists and eyes started softly. “There’s something different in his hardware. I’ve got to work around it. Hold him off.” There was an obvious strain in Hyuk’s voice as the cyborg continued to step closer undeterred. Ravi did not like their odds against the large maul in such a confined space. It’d be like swinging for water in a lake, not hard to find.

“Nuh uh,” again their attacker used an almost playful sing-song like voice despite the distortion, “according to my calculations, you’re going to be dead before you can get through my new encryptions.” Ravi gauged the distance, a few more feet and they’d be within range of an attack.

Around their feet a sickly red fog began to spread. “H-how did you know I’m a chronomancer?” Ravi had always been prepared for the world to fall apart around him and eat him, but getting crushed by a cyborg had not been on his expected ways to go. “How did you find me?”

“Ravi, we have to go…” Hakyeon muttered into his ear, clutching his arm even as he stepped back with him. “I can’t… there’s no where to portal us to that’s far enough away.”

“That’s telling,” but the cyborg giggled a little and tilted his head just so, Ravi could swear he heard grinding sounds coming from within him, his steps slowing to a halt. “How about this, if you live then maybe I’ll tell you.” Another giggle, he even brought his hand up to cover his mouth, it seemed like such an innocent action, “that’s the joke, you’re not going to live.” The grinding grew louder as he raised his maul, lining up his strike.

For the first time Ravi noticed the red fog that seemed to have coated the ground, nerves prickling just at the base of his neck. It seemed… very unnatural, and very unsafe. “What the fuck?” Something like alarm rushed over red headed cyborg’s face as his body lifted from the ground, joints straining at odd angles.

An eerie laugh echoed inside the red fog and had Ravi reaching for his rifle. “Well that’s new,” a deep voice rumbled as a man stepped from the shadow of one of the buildings. He held a wicked looking cane with a needle sharp point that seemed to be glowing the same red as the fog. A wicked grin graced his face, white teeth bared in a snarl that masqueraded as a smile. His black hair covered his right eye, but the other was something Ravi had only read about in books. A perfect white orb with a black ‘X’ through the middle. There was indeed a necromancer in Torbinas. “A dead man walking.”

One of the cyborgs arms began to strain and flex back into it’s proper shape, a look of extreme concentration on his face. “We should get out of here.” Hakyeon whispered in a low tone pulling on Ravi’s arm.

“I’ve almost got him shut down, just a little more,” Sweat was pouring down Hyuk’s face as what seemed like little yellow electric arcs crackled around his hands. “Then we don’t have to run.” Ravi wasn’t so sure, despite the ‘smile’ their timely savior didn’t look exactly friendly.

“Let. Go. Of. Me!” Ravi watched as the red headed cyborg struggled against tendrils of thick red fog, working his body back into a manageable shape. The necromancer’s smirk turned feral as the red light pulsed from his hands.

“That’s a necromancer…” Hakyeon’s voice waivered, his fingers still clutched tight into Ravi’s sleeve, “we really, really have to go. We have to go right now before it’s too late.”

“I need answers from him,” Ravi swallowed thickly, telling himself that the way his legs were shaking was just fatigue.

“Almost there…” Hyuk grunted before a blinding flash of light burst from his eyes. A loud crunch reverberated in the tight space as the cyborg’s body fell to the ground in a heap.

“No!” with wide eyes Ravi stared at the prone form, “I was serious, I do need answers from him!”

“He’s not dead, just powered down. All of the main processing was way behind a firewall, I could only make a little chip in it. Easier all around to just shut down it’s power.” Hyuk shrugged panting for breath.

The same creepy laughter reminded them that they weren’t alone. “Oh, he’s dead, believe me, I’d know.” Hakyeon flinched slightly at the dark humor. “But he’s been dead for… a long time.”

“Thank you, for your help,” the void knight bowed awkwardly, a less than thankful look on his face, “now, we need to go, this instant.” He glared at both Ravi and Hyuk as if daring them to defy him.

“Can we take him with us, the cyborg. I mean.”

“You _want_ to have him near us when he powers up?” Hakyeon’s voice almost went shrill.

“I’m not letting this one get away.” The red tendrils of fog were back, lifting the body of the cyborg as the necromancer offered another crooked grin, “If you want answers from it, then you can follow me.” He made a snapping sound with his teeth that had Hakyeon jumping back in what Ravi would have called fear, “That is, if you dare.” He laughed again.

“Ravi, don’t,” but Hakyeon was already giving his warning to Ravi’s back as he followed after the chuckling man. “Ravi... “ Hakyeon whined and glanced at Hyuk who shrugged and offered his hand to the knight. Taking it, they both followed after them.


	10. Chapter 9

A clear and steady drip was going to drive Ravi mad. Even with the echoing sounds of footsteps in puddles, the drip made it through and rang like a drum in his ear. Maybe following a necromancer into the catacombs of a city was a bad idea, Hakyeon had been eager to point out just how bad of an idea it was. But Ravi had to believe that this was more than just mere chance, or at least every necromancer he ran into he had to pursue. Finding the people he was looking for was going to be hard enough for the races that were abundant, a necromancer was nigh on impossible.

The dizzying caverns of the Torbinas’ sewers intercut with the catacombs leaving Ravi, Hakyeon, and Hyuk all fairly lost. The hazy red light that seemed to pulse from the smoky tendrils of power led them down ever twisting corridors. The necromancer, no name given, had been all but silent aside from an amused chuckle when he realized that they’d actually followed him. Every now and then he would turn back and see if they were still with him, an unreadable smirk tipping the corner of his lips.

_ Plop, plop. _

Ravi winced and ground his teeth slightly. By all rights they should have been far past the distance of hearing the same drip. “You hear that right?” he glanced to his traveling companions and found Hakyeon all but huddled behind Hyuk’s tall frame. He was peering through suspicious eyes at the back of the necromancer’s head while simultaneously keeping one very harried technomancer between them.

“Hear what?” Hakyeon peeked out from behind Hyuk’s shoulder, silver throwing knife in hand. “Are you hearing things? Is it him?” He hissed the word like it was a dirty flavor in his mouth.

“It’s blood.” The deep voice of the necromancer echoed back to them, a soft chuckle following it. All three of them froze as the dark haired man turned to face them, his crossed out eye scanning over them. It was the first he’d said to them since they’d started their trek down into the maze. Stepping closer, the necromancer tipped his head to the side, the straight curtain of black hair covering his right moving to reveal another white black crossed eye. The stories were right, it was unnerving. Sliding his fingers delicately down the sharp blade of his needle point cane, the man laughed as they came to the end, red dripping from his fingers where they’d been pricked. Squeezing them together, Ravi watched as a fat drop of ruby liquid fell to splat against the floor before being absorbed into it, disappearing completely.

“That’s gross!” Hyuk’s nose wrinkled even while he took a few steps back from the spot where the blood had been enveloped by the stone floor. “Why would you even do that?”

Their guide turned his head to gesture at the walls of the sewers/catacombs lined with bones and skulls, almost artfully placed. The Holy Empire took their ancestry seriously, and Ravi knew that each skeleton was carefully categorized in the Hall of Memorials. Giant hand written tomes held the name of every warrior who gave their life in service to the Empire, and every Angel was a servant of the Empire.

“Do you think I’d stay anywhere without a security system?” the Necromancer asked before rolling his eyes at the very idea. “Or did you want thousands of spectral warriors coming to bear against you?” He waited a beat before letting another fat drop of blood sink into the stones followed by the same soft laugh he’d been using. “I didn’t think so.”

Hyuk shot a glance to Ravi and Hakyeon but shrugged and started after the floating body of the automaton and the man controlling it. “Does anyone else feel like this is a bad idea?” he muttered quietly to himself.

“I agree.” Hakyeon bit his lip and made sure to keep at least one body away from the lead. “It feels like a trap. The kind of trap that could easily be closed on us, and no one would ever know. We’d just be more bones to lay on the pile. That’s what  _ they _  do, you know?”

“They?” The chuckle from the necromancer was starting to get a little unnerving. “And just how many of my kind have you met, caster? The last I’d checked the Starlit Kingdom had wiped out any necromancer they’d found trying to live there.” His tone was light but an unmistakable coat of bitterness soaked into the words.

Hakyeon bristled but didn’t respond right away. Ravi could see the internal struggle between the need to defend his home country and the refusal to speak to the raven haired man. He opened his mouth once before shutting it and glaring at the retreating back. “Well, it’s not as if there isn’t good reason for it. Everyone knows the stories of necromancers terrorizing all the nations.” He glanced to Hyuk and Ravi for confirmation.

“Well, he’s not wrong exactly,” Hyuk shrugged but kept a few steps back, at least out of range of the wicked looking cane. “Historically speaking every record of a necromancer has ended in some sort of massacre and ritual disturbance of the dead.” He sent an apologetic look all around, as if he was sorry for knowing the facts.

“Imagine that,” their guide said dryly, “hunt down and villainize a people enough years and suddenly none of them want to play nice with the others.” Sarcasm dripped off his words like the blood falling to the stone. “If you’re so worried about not making it out of this crypt alive then you can turn right around and make your way out.”

For a moment, Hakyeon glanced back, gauging his chances on making it out of the twisted maze of tunnels safely. “I…” he started but Ravi reached out and took his wrist softly, rubbing gently to offer comfort. “I’m not afraid of you.” Hakyeon retorted stiffly and turned his hand to squeeze Ravi’s once. “But I am ready, for when the trap springs, necromancer.”

“Hongbin.” That crossed out eye narrowed as the man glanced over his shoulder, another plop of blood splattering against the stone. “My name is Hongbin.” Ravi watched, almost entranced, as the necromancer drew a line across his palm with the tip of his cane, blood trickling down to his wrist in a wet line. “And I expect some manners if you’re going to enter my home.” Reaching out, he placed his hand against a wall of bones, resting right on the forehead of a gaping skull. The same sick red fog seemed to spill out of the cracks in the wall, pulsing with light as it wreathed around Hongbin’s legs. Slowly an entrance began to form from the bones, scraping and shifting away. Light began to pour out of the side, blazing and bright making them all wince and squint. So used to the darkness, the bright shine seemed almost too much to handle.

By the time Ravi could make his eyes adjust to the dramatic change they were following Hongbin into the opening. He heard more than saw the bones shift behind them to seal the entrance once more, but nothing could distract from the wide cavern they’d stepped into.

Light, so much light. It seemed to pour in from every direction but that was probably due to the mirrors situated all around the room. A giant crystal chandelier hung from the high ceiling sending it’s unnaturally bright glow to reflect and bounce from mirror to mirror, filling the room completely. Plain and ornate mirrors hung all over the space, on every wall, on every pillar, even on the ceiling. White gossamer fabric hung in delicate drapes against the walls of bone and skulls, and pretty cream colored furniture were arranged perfectly inside the wide open space. It was like he’d taken a grand ballroom and all it’s opulence and turned it into his living space.

It was a testament to how strange and beautiful the room was that Ravi noticed the fully animated skeleton servants as an afterthought. They stood, silent and waiting, to the side of the entrance. It was with a morbid fascination ;that Ravi watched one reach out it’s bony hand to take the stitched together jacket Hongbin had been wearing. As absurd as it seemed to him, he watched as the skeleton delicately handled the coat and set about hanging it up on a rack. Another followed after Hongbin, pouring water into a glass for him from an carved carafe on the large table near the center of the room.

“I’ll need three more.” Hongbin instructed the skeleton which nodded with an eerie sort of creaking before going to fetch a tray and more glasses. Ravi couldn’t help but think that the necromancer seemed so out of place inside the space. A spot of black darkness from his shirt and pants to his hair to his strange eye inside all that light.

Despite all his knowledge, all the studying he’d done to prepare for his journey, Ravi never would have expected something like this. There weren’t many accounts of necromancers from reputable sources. A lot of what was printed in the tomes he scoured were stories told of necromancers past. He’d read stories of communes which were eventually destroyed, and of self appointed kings who were toppled, but nothing like the space Hongbin kept. It was fascinating and a little terrifying, the sense of unknown was slowly becoming more and more familiar to him.

“Well? Are you three just going to stand there?” Hongbin had relocated to a collection of couches and chairs to the side of the room, settling in on a high backed seat in the same cream colored upholstery as the rest of the furniture. His skeletal minion arrived with the soft scraping of bone on bone to set down a platter of water goblets on the small table in the center of the seating arrangement.

Hakyeon seemed wary of going any farther into the room, hand placed against the wall that had sealed them inside and eyes drifting toward the body of their robot attacker, sitting dormant on the ground. “This isn’t right,” he whispered for only Ravi and Hyuk to hear, “I’m not being paranoid; there are good reasons why you don’t go looking for necromancers.” His yellow eyes darted around the room, skimming over each skeleton that stood as a silent sentry. “We’re outnumbered and on his turf. And now we have no exit.”

“Well,” Hyuk started before Ravi could offer a reassuring word, “no exit means no choice now.” He smiled cheerfully but it didn’t quite light up his face the way it had previously and Ravi got the feeling that he was offering the positivity to help calm the knight’s nerves. “Let’s face it head on, okay? If nothing else, this is definitely something you can take back to the court isn’t it? Not many other knights will be able to say they sat down for a chat with a necromancer right?” The offered encouragement was either a sign that Hyuk felt equally as threatened in the space or that Ravi’s prayers of the two of them getting along were finally starting to be answered. He sincerely hoped for the latter.

Slightly mollified, Hakyeon gave one swift nod before screwing up all his courage to make the trek across the room to the couches. It was much shorter than it appeared, but the mirrors tended to give the illusion of size and space. Stiffly, he sat on one of the offered seats, eyes trained on the skeleton stationed behind Hongbin’s seat. He kept his throwing knife in hand, almost like a safety item, the pad of his thumb rubbing continually over the handle.

Purposefully Hongbin took a deep sip from his goblet before settling further into his chair, seemingly completely at ease, that same peculiar smirk on his lips. “It’s not poisoned, you know?” He laughed softly and sipped again as if to prove his point. Ravi had to wonder if he didn’t say it just to put the idea in their heads. It felt like they were all pieces to a game Hongbin was playing but none of them knew the rules.

“Where did you get all of this?” Hyuk piped in before Ravi could fully get an assessment of the situation. Trust the fearless technomancer to start off on any foot available. “It’s, well I hope you don’t mind my saying, but it’s pretty nice for a sewer.”

“The perks of living like a shadow in the Holy City I guess, the most densely populated space in the Holy Empire means there are a lot of people for others to point the finger at.” All but an admission that the goods were stolen.

“And the mirrors? I mean… you like looking at yourself that much?” Ravi winced at the blunt force with which Hyuk waded into conversation. But he wasn’t exactly wrong, there were a lot of mirrors, much more than was aesthetically pleasing and there was a certain cut to the necromancer’s jaw, the slope of his nose, the lobe of his ear that someone might find appealing. Not that the someone was Ravi, of course not, just in an… objective sort of view, if one looked past the creepy eyes and penchant for spilling his own blood then Hongbin would probably fall into the category of attractive; sub heading: very.

It might have been his imagination but Ravi was almost sure he saw dark look pass over the other man’s face before he gave a nonchalant shrug. “It’s good for the lighting.” He held up his goblet and without missing a beat the skeleton behind him took the cup away. “Not easy to light up a cavern like this, is it?”

A vague answer at best, but Ravi wasn’t expecting more. “Do you think you could answer a few questions for me… please?” It never hurt to be polite but even the time worn chronomancer felt himself pull back ever so slightly when that strange eye peered into him. “It is why we came after all.”

“I thought your questions were for that.” Hongbin gestured to the automaton crumpled on the floor. “What do you need me for?”

“This idiot thinks he’s from the future.” Hyuk snorted and kicked back in his seat. “He wants to rope you into some save the world plan, same as us I imagine.”

“Why would I want to do something like that?” Disdain all but dripped from his voice.

Ravi winced and muttered under his breath about being too casual before making himself look up to meet the unwavering gaze of the necromancer. “We didn’t have the chance to start out right. I’m Ravi. It’s nice to meet you, Hongbin.” He bowed once and then shot a glance at the two with him.

“Hyuk, Technomancer.” The younger boy bobbed his head slightly and offered a cheesy grin, “there’s no way my friend is going to believe I met a real Necromancer.”   
  
“How many fake ones have you met?” Hongbin smirked, just the corner of his mouth turning up at the side and it did little to lessen the creepy aura surrounding him but it didn’t deter Hyuk from laughing heartily.

All eyes turned to Hakyeon who still sat as far away as he could manage, body stiff. “We don’t have time for this. While we sit around down here the keys to my kingdom are being compromised!” Ravi watched him rub the handle of his throwing knife again and could feel how uncomfortable the man was.

“This is Sir Hakyeon, of the Starlit Kingdom. We came here chasing an angel with access codes to the defenses of Arxist. You can imagine the havoc it might cause to fall into angelic high command.” Ravi explained quietly, doubting sincerely that their host cared at all.

Hongbin didn’t bother to comment right away, glancing between all three of them before sighing, broad shoulders slumping in his seat. “And where did the dead man come into play?”

“That we don’t know,” Ravi worried his lip before taking a sip from the offered cup. To his relief, it wasn’t poison but in fact some of the cleanest, coolest water he’d tasted. But that could have been the exhaustion of the day speaking. “He found us in Stenyae and attacked. We thought we lost him but I guess we were wrong. However, as to what he wants with us? I have no idea. Hence, the questions that need asking.”

“About that,” Hakyeon cut in, standing as if to emphasize his point, “explain to me how bringing him down to an enclosed space with us, his targets, is going to be a smart idea when he wakes back up.”

“Man’s got a point,” pushing up from his seat, Hyuk wandered closer to one of the shining mirrors. “Getting him shut down was hard enough, I imagine the firewalls in his software are already safe guarding against future attempts. That’s what happened last time.”

Hongbin gave a disinterested look and brushed his hair aside a moment before peering at the cyborg. “There’s something… strange about him, besides being dead. Figuring it out is not a chance I’d want to pass up.”

“I could help, you know? I was pretty instrumental in bringing him down this time time.” A bright and somewhat smug smile spread across the young blonde. “I know a thing or two about cybernetics too.” He waggled his eyebrows for good measure while letting his fingers briefly glow yellow.

“Then that settles it!” Hakyeon stood up and clapped his hands but seemed less in a hurry to admire himself in a mirror. “You two stay here with that,” he shrugged toward the automaton, “and we,” Ravi felt himself be gripped tight around the waist suddenly, “will go look for Lieutenant Jung.”

For the briefest moment it seemed like Hyuk would argue but then he shrugged once and nodded, “Okay, but no stupid ideas,” glancing between them he snickered, “that might be asking too much, only semi stupid ideas.” Pulling out the holodisk he kept, he transferred the hologram of their target from his visor’s HUD to the portable display. “Take this with you and have fun.”


End file.
